IT'S NOT A BACKLASH, IT'S A STATE OF GOOD REPAIR.

I've spelled out my preferred position previously.  "When people get tired of things being broken, they seek to restore a state of good repair."  Four different public intellectuals with bigger platforms than mine are making the same point, in four different ways.

Lead off with American Greatness, and V. D. Hanson continuing his case for re-electing Our President.  "Trump, of 'Crooked Hillary,' 'lock her up,' and 'Sleepy Joe' infamy, was more likely to react concretely to the plight of the inner city and the economic aspirations of minorities and the white working-class, who were not just crushed by globalization but so often ignored by their supposed champions of both parties."

Next up is Andrew Sullivan, currently relegated to the blogosphere, hoping for a favorable form of Mr Biden taking office, but fearing the worst.  "If one party supports everything I believe in but doesn’t believe in maintaining law and order all the time and everywhere, I’ll back a party that does. In that sense, I’m a one-issue voter, because without order, there is no room for any other issue."  Particularly when Mr Biden's party has handed that issue to a master persuader.  "These despicable fanatics, like it or not, are now in part the face of the Democrats: a snarling bunch of self-righteous, entitled bigots, chanting slogans rooted in pseudo-Marxist claptrap, erecting guillotines — guillotines! — in the streets as emblems of their agenda. They are not arguing; they are attempting to coerce. And liberals, from the Biden campaign to the New York Times, are too cowardly and intimidated to call out these bullies and expel them from the ranks."  Tossing Andrew Sullivan from The Atlantic, on the other hand?

Third comes Rod Dreher, observing that the kid militia in Kenosha might reflect that public desire for a state of good repair.  "I am reporting that [shooting suspect Kyle Rittenhouse] is fast becoming a hero among a lot of people who are sick of the rioting. This may be a terrible thing, but it is really happening, and there’s a reason for it. It’s a sign, I think, of a building backlash — one that could result in a lot more violence. It doesn’t do us any good to pretend this is not happening because it frightens or offends us."

Batting cleanup is Reason's Brian Doherty, "Bourgeois Libertarianism Can Save America."  Specifically, "State power simply cannot rule a people if even a small, energized minority refuses to let it. If you actually care about a functioning civilization, it is never enough to have the state controlled by the 'right side.'" Left unsaid, suppressing that small energized minority is a possibility, but it is not likely to be a victory the winners can live with.

Alas, the past half century of deconstructing bourgeois norms, and the past century of the Cult of the Presidency and the administrative state, all provide a lot of inertia that any effort to achieve a state of good repair must overcome.